No monkeys like snow monkeys: Soak up Japan's hot-tubbing wildlife

Soak in the sight of wild macaques in Japanese Alps

David Armstrong, Special to the Chronicle

Published
4:00 am PST, Sunday, March 2, 2008

TRAVEL SNOW MONKEYS -- Japanese Macaque monkeys dip in a hot spring in the snow at Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park in Yamanouchi, Nagano prefecture, central Japan, Monday, Dec. 6, 2004. Some 250 monkeys in two groups, inhabit the nearby mountains and are fed in the park. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) less

TRAVEL SNOW MONKEYS -- Japanese Macaque monkeys dip in a hot spring in the snow at Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park in Yamanouchi, Nagano prefecture, central Japan, Monday, Dec. 6, 2004. Some 250 monkeys in two groups, inhabit the nearby mountains and are fed in the park. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) less

I am watching, entranced, as a gaggle of bathers jumps into a big, steaming outdoor pool.

A popular hot spot in the frozen winterscape of upcountry Japan, the bath quickly fills with enthusiasts. Some dunk their heads in water drawn directly from geothermal mineral springs. Some squirt quickly through the water, then skitter out onto the rocky rim to cool off in the icy morning air. A few more preen and splash as friends help scrub a hard-to-reach part of the back.

All this would be normal behavior anywhere for people taking a dip together, but these bathers aren't people: They are wild Japanese macaques - monkeys - who live in the surrounding national park and have taken to using the onsen - hot springs - just as people do.

Indeed, their bath habits are so human-like, they enchant a small group of Japanese tourists and even smaller number of international travelers who have hiked into the park just to see them this day. The fascination isn't mutual - the monkeys largely ignore us and our constantly clicking cameras. They're here to take the waters.

The macaques are dramatic, especially when you walk up to within a few feet of them. You must take care not to touch them, feed them or make eye contact, as that is a challenge in monkeyland, and these normally placid primates can quickly turn aggressive.

They are mid-sized by monkey standards, with gray-white winter fur that forms thick tufts around beet-red faces. Pity it's so risky to look them in the eye, because they have unexpectedly expressive eyes: dark-lidded, with dark eyebrows - almost as though the macaques had applied mascara and eyeliner and are ready for their close-ups. Their eyes are surprisingly soulful, even thoughtful - at least I imagine so as I take darting, side-long looks.

This is the only place on the planet where wild monkeys - Macaca fuscata - come regularly to take communal onsen. The macaques - dubbed "snow monkeys" - bathe year-round in the open-air hot springs hereabouts, but, no fools, they come to the onsen most often in winter. They also come here to eat - again, especially in winter, when grubs, leaves, birds' eggs and other food are hard to find in the wild. (Park rangers feed the monkeys daily at 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m.)

Japan's Yellowstone

The monkey habitat is not truly remote, but visitors have to put in some work to get here, which ensures that the place is rarely crowded. I took a shinkansen - a bullet train - from Tokyo, then transferred to a slow, local train in Nagano city, thence onto a "Snow Monkey Holiday Minibus" from the town of Yamanouchi to the edge of the national park.

From there I hiked into the park on a steep, mostly unpaved footpath. My boots scrunched on recently fallen snow as I climbed rough-hewn stairs, trundled up a gravel slope, literally passed through a ryokan (traditional inn) and held on for dear life on an ice-caked footbridge located near a spraying geyser. When I reached out for the handrail, I grabbed inch-thick ice. Then, one more footbridge, a flat, easy one, and then the onsen and the monkeys came into sight. For all the rugged terrain, the walk in took only about 20 minutes.

I arrived, as planned, after the monkeys have polished off breakfast, as I didn't care to see feeding time at the zoo replicated in the park. I wanted to see the animals snow-monkeying around in the water.

Local people told me the monkeys don't come to the mineral hot springs every day, so I felt gratified as I approached their main redoubt and saw that perhaps two dozen of the frisky macaques had dived right in. Soaking in the hot springs allows the monkeys to get naked - er, no, right, they're already naked - and get warm, away from the snowy woods and windy ledges around the onsen. It's only the people standing around watching them who shiver pathetically.

Jigokudani Valley - "Hell's Valley," for its many boiling, steamy hot springs - is Japan's Yellowstone. The steep, rocky walls keep much of the 2,800-foot-high valley floor in sub-freezing shadow throughout the day, while snow blankets the valley for four months a year. Keeping warm preoccupies man and beast alike.

To the world at large, this rustic valley, located just a mile and a half from Yamanouchi town, in rural Nagano Prefecture, is best known as the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Indeed, the gleaming main train station in Nagano city was built to handle crowds for the Olympics, and banners currently draped around Nagano city remind locals and visitors that 2008 is the 10th anniversary of those games. Much of the sporting infrastructure remains for the enjoyment of skiers, snowboarders and other fans of winter sports. The snowboard halfpipe course is located just up the slopes from the monkey park, a section of a national park set aside as a protected home for the snow monkeys.

In 1998, assigned to live in Nagano for a month to cover the Olympic Games, American-born Tokyo journalist Eric Talmadge, author of the entertaining 2006 book "Getting Wet: Adventures in the Japanese Bath," climbed in the onsen with the snow monkeys - truly participatory journalism. I didn't go quite that far for this story, and don't recommend skinny-dipping with the cute but territorial primates, who normally have their rocky mineral pool all to themselves.

The park, established in 1964, is home to 200 to 300 monkeys. Cartoonish monkey-face logos adorn signs in Yamanouchi town, and the monkeys have been adopted in Japan as mascots of sorts.

Some gimlet-eyed townspeople in Yamanouchi have a somewhat less cuddly view of the monkeys, however, as the creatures sometimes leave the park in winter when hunger drives them into town. Then, they are considered a nuisance, especially by shopkeepers, whose premises are occasionally invaded by rambunctious, won't-take-no-for-an-answer monkeys. Shopkeepers in law-abiding Japan don't keep guns under the counter, but they have another nasty surprise on hand to deal with too much monkey business: slingshots.

Country charm

Given that it took half a day to work my way to the monkey park from Tokyo, I decided to stay the night in Yamanouchi. Then I decided to stay a second night. It is a snug country town arranged between looming valley walls and strung along the fast-flowing Yokoyugawa River.

Yamanouchi feels smaller than its listed population of 17,000. The most picturesque part of town is located toward the northeast end, closest to the monkey park. This is Shibu-Onsen, a compact walking district well-known among Japanese looking for a getaway from the city and for a taste of old Japan.

It's home to traditional ryokans, quaint shops, well-kept Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines and no fewer than nine public baths (sentos).

I arrived on a Sunday, and it was quiet. At times all I heard was the clip-clop of traditional wooden sandals on the paving stones of the curving main street. This announced the approach of bathers wrapped in yukata robes, water bottles in hand, on their way to and from the public baths. They carried keys attached to long wooden boards, for opening doors to the baths - indoor establishments, the public baths charge no admission fee but are kept locked. The bathers - all Homo sapiens this time - wore the signature robes of the ryokans where they are staying.

Zeno, an English-speaking worker at the ryokan I booked, called Kokuya, showed me around town and told me the history of his ryokan, which has been in wife Akiko's family for at least 300 years. No one is sure exactly how long. Her father, Onezawa-san, is the 16th-generation owner of the hotel, which has occupied a series of buildings on a site above a mineral hot springs these many years. Hearing this reminds me what a young country America is. In Japan, the tradition of onsen bathing has been traced back at least 1,300 years in the Nagano area.

After climbing impossibly steep stone steps just yards away from Kokuya, Zeno led me to a serene, impeccably neat Buddhist temple on the hillside. Below us, snow covered the rooftops of shops and houses. Across several rooftops were fresh tracks in the snow.

"Monkeys," he says.

After observing all this bathing, I take a hot-spring bath on my last night, settling into the private wooden tub on the open-air deck outside my room at Kokuya.

It is all mine. It is scalding hot and throws off a constant cloud of steam. I cool the bath by running the cold water tap for a long time before getting in. I throw my head back and wait for snow to fall from the night sky; the forecast said a storm is coming. The snow doesn't show up on cue, but it doesn't matter. I have seen the famous snow monkeys. I am luxuriating in the onsen. It is deep winter, and I am safe and warm.

If you go

GETTING THERE

Nagano city is 95 minutes from Tokyo on the Asama bullet train. Yamanouchi town's Yudanaka Station is 45 minutes from Nagano city on the Nagano-Dentetsu rail line; trains leave four times a day. The minibus to the monkey park runs seven times a day from Yamanouchi town and costs 1,500 yen (about $13.90 US) round trip, including admission to the park.

WHERE TO STAY AND EAT

Best bets are ryokans, which put tatami straw mats on the floor, install a small table heated underneath in your room, and use futons for sleeping - unlike American futons, they are something like very plush sleeping bags, not fold-out couches. Ryokans typically serve two meals a day, usually breakfast and dinner; restaurant dining options in Yamanouchi are limited. My single room at Kokuya ryokan was 12,750 yen ($118) a day; service charges for meals brought the rate to 15,000 yen a day. Shibu-Onsen, Yamanouchi town, Nagano Prefecture 381-0401. (011) 81 26 933 251, www.ichizaemon.com.

The Nagano Prefecture Tourism Information Web site has an English-language version with a lodging guide. The site's unusual URL: 211.5.228.20/english.